Practice profile
practice A very social
Using social media and new technologies has provided many benefits to the recently-opened Inverurie Dental Practice
S
ocial media sites are becoming increasingly important to many dentists, but if anyone was in any doubt about
how effective an online presence can be, they could benefit from listening to Will Doherty, co-owner with his wife Judith of the recently- opened Inverurie Dental Practice in Aberdeenshire. The husband and wife team
took the decision to set up their own practice last year, and imme- diately created a Facebook page to announce their upcoming opening in Inverurie and to start the process of pre-registering patients. “We gave people the option to
sign up from that point onwards last year, even before we began the physical work on the practice,” says Will. “We didn’t have a single sign up by phone, it was all done online, but by using social media we could easily keep everyone up to date with any changes in our planned opening date.” After three months of hectic work, the practice officially opened its
doors on ı2 June, by which time Will and Judith had around 4,500 patients on their books. “It made such a difference to open
the practice on day one, knowing we already had a very good number of patients registered with us, and we weren’t making a step into the unknown in terms of who was going to come to us as a new practice,” says Will. “There’s no doubt that having a
good handle on social media can provide a competitive advantage. For me as the practice owner, it’s about being able to have complete control over the various streams we have online and making sure there is synergy between them all. “It’s multi-faceted – you can use it
for market research and sales, or as a patient recruitment and retention tool, or simply to keep people easily up to date and connected with what is going on at the practice.” The practice qualified for Scot-
tish Dental Access Initiative (SDAI) start-up capital as an NHS- committed practice. Will said: “The SDAI grant was crucial, but setting
up the practice also involved signifi- cant personal investment. We took on a ı0-year lease on our property, which we fitted out from scratch as a squat practice.” The facility has complete disa-
bled access, and offers free Wi-Fi, TV, SMS and email appointment reminders. Patients are also offered short notice cancellation appoint- ments by text message. Should they accept, they are automatically allo- cated these appointments. The surgeries were kitted out
by Wright Cottrell with top-of- the-range A-dec chairs, digital radiography, air conditioning, micro-motors, rotary endodontic equipment and Corian seamless work surfaces. All the dental mate- rials are supplied by Henry Schein Dental and they even have ceiling- mounted televisions for patients to watch while they are undergoing treatment. Inverurie Dental Practice now
has three dentists and four dental nurses, as well as a practice manager and receptionist. The dental team is headed up by Judith, while Will stays out of the surgeries to concentrate on managing the practice. The other reason for the instant
success of the practice, Will thinks, is that it is a family-run operation with strong roots in the Inverurie community. “Our team has been formed with
people who we have worked with for several years in practice, so we already knew each other. The majority of our staff are from Inverurie and the rest from Aberdeen, so the practice has a real local identity.”
Scottish Dental magazine 49
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